In media when your inbox is unusually full and most correspondence as well as phone calls relate to one thing, you know you have touched on an issue people feel strongly about.
We recently published – The need for young people at the heart of a hospitality reset.
The article brought what one correspondent called “the industry’s ever present conundrum” alongside a much more recent issue, the need for a Minister for Hospitality. Another quoted Oscar Wilde saying that too many people “know the price of everything and the value of nothing”.
The unanimous feedback we received was that the more recent issue, is of direct consequence from not being sufficiently hospitable to some of our colleagues.
Being in the business of providing hospitality, just as charity begins at home surely hospitality should also.
The majority of people working in hospitality are young, temporary or part time colleagues on low pay. Many of these young people will be working to help fund their university education, and that work will be their first work experience.
Bright young people motivated to work to pay for their education are exactly who the hospitality industry needs.
But, for all too many it will be their first and their last experience of working in hospitality.
Why?
Somehow some hospitality employers including household ‘names’ are getting away with paying people less than the minimum wage. Recently named and shamed by government the list of perpetrators can be seen here.
When this sort of treatment is meted out to young people setting out into the world to stand on their own two feet for the first time, it is little wonder that they then sidestep returning to hospitality in future.
Needless to say this is not just poor behaviour, it comes at a huge and real cost to hospitality in access to human resources.
How can things change?
The government has called out the perpetrators, now is the time that the hospitality industry should too. They are all named below, alongside how many people were underpaid, and by how much. The details are all available and can be seen at GOV.UK as can the views of Business Minister Paul Scully, and Bryan Sanderson, Chair of the Low Pay Commission.
Restaurant: Pizza Hut (U.K.) Limited, City of Edinburgh WD6, failed to pay £845,936.41 to 10,980 workers.
Supplier: Doherty & Gray Limited, Mid and East Antrim BT42, failed to pay £43,470.16 to 128 workers.
Supplier: Hill Biscuits Limited, Tameside OL7, failed to pay £25,867.06 to 247 workers.
Hotel: Home Grown Hotels Limited, New Forest SO43, failed to pay £13,790.44 to 25 workers.
Supplier: Müller UK & Ireland Group LLP, Shropshire TF9, failed to pay £10,702.11 to 54 workers.
Restaurant: Eat Food Limited, trading as Albatta Restaurant, Colchester CO1, failed to pay £7,987.15 to 5 workers.
Hotel: Hoar Cross Hall Limited, East Staffordshire OX7, failed to pay £6,651.94 to 26 workers.
Supplier: Renard Resources Limited, Westminster WC2E, failed to pay £6,492.95 to 484 workers.
Hotel: Imago @ Loughborough Limited, Charnwood LE11, failed to pay £6,319.05 to 101 workers.
Supplier: Costco Wholesale UK Limited, Hertsmere WD25, failed to pay £3,747.52 to 58 workers.
Restaurant: Byron Hamburgers Limited, Westminster W1D, failed to pay £3,062.03 to 77 workers.
Hotel: Manor House Country Hotel Limited, Fermanagh and Omagh BT94, failed to pay £2,837.04 to 139 workers.
Hotel: Storrs Hall Limited, South Lakeland BB1, failed to pay £2,402.23 to 3 workers.
Restaurant: Chi Yip Group Limited, Oldham M24, failed to pay £2,121.51 to 14 workers.
Hotel: Four Pillars Hotels Limited, Harrogate HG2, failed to pay £2,092.55 to 29 workers.
Supplier: J & B Wilde & Sons, Manchester, failed to pay £1,717.23 to 4 workers.
Café: LM Bubble Tea Ltd, trading as Mooboo, Liverpool L15, failed to pay £1,628.49 to 14 workers.
Hotel: The Wensleydale Heifer Limited, Richmondshire DL8, failed to pay £1,625.89 to 3 workers.
Hotel: Hotel Birmingham Ltd, trading as Travellers Inn, Sandwell B69, failed to pay £1,516.25 to 3 workers.
Hotel: Lord Hill Hotel Limited, Shropshire SY2, failed to pay £1,168.91 to 18 workers.
Restaurant: Gino’s Dial-A-Pizza Ltd, Cannock Chase WS11, failed to pay £1,117.38 to 7 workers.
Restaurant: Omar Khayyam, City of Edinburgh, failed to pay £935.31 to 2 workers.
Hotel: Woodborough Hall, Gedling, failed to pay £723.60 to 2 workers.
Restaurant: Eddie’s Diner, Great Yarmouth, failed to pay £670.13 to 3 workers. No website.
Restaurant: Eat Tokyo Limited, Barnet NW11, failed to pay £530.83 to 2 workers.
42 of the 139 businesses named are from hospitality equalling 30%, that does not include another 11 on the list that could be named but have gone out of business, so 53 in total, 38%.
Given the array of industries and business sectors in the UK, for 30 plus % of the businesses named by government to be from one sector is more than an indicator of urgent action being required.
Unpalatable reading, and thankfully a great many exceptions to it, but a window none the less. And perhaps a window that is more reflective than some might like to think. But, like all problems acceptance and recognition is the first step towards finding remedy to them.
Given that the definition of hospitality is – “the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers” – it would seem some employers need to look closely at how they relate that to their own colleagues, including young, temporary and part time ones.
If you have an opinion or view you would like to add to our inbox on any of the above please email Editor@HandCNews.com
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Hospitality & Catering News: Being hospitable to hospitality colleagues. – 13 February 2021 – Being hospitable to hospitality colleagues.
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